In situ measurements of the ice flow motion at Eqip Sermia Glacier using a remotely controlled unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)

Jouvet, Guillaume; van Dongen, Eef; Lüthi, Martin P.; Vieli, Andreas

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/gi-9-1-2020

Articles | Volume 9, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/gi-9-1-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/gi-9-1-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 9, issue 1

Research article

|

12 Feb 2020

Research article |

| 12 Feb 2020

In situ measurements of the ice flow motion at Eqip Sermia Glacier using a remotely controlled unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)

Guillaume Jouvet, Eef van Dongen, Martin P. Lüthi, and Andreas Vieli

Data sets

Mapping of the calving front of Eqip Sermia Glacier, West Greenland, by UAV photogrammetry G. Jouvet and E. van Dongen https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3337242

Short summary

We report the first-ever in situ measurements of ice flow motion using a remotely controlled drone. We used a quadcopter to land on a highly crevassed area of Eqip Sermia Glacier, Greenland. The drone measured 70 cm of ice displacement over more than 4 h thanks to an accurate onboard GPS. Our study demonstrates that drones have great potential for geoscientists, especially to deploy sensors in hostile environments such as glaciers.